Superman Through the Ages! Forum

I can't help but think about the Superboy TV series from the late eighties. For all intents and purposes you had a show about someone who had ceased to exist two years earlier. To a lesser degree you could say the same for the Saturday morning cartooon also on the air at the same time (the one I am named after). It also had it's own "super-boy" that also wasn't reflected in the comics. So basically DC had two shows about Superman at the same time and niether one was accurate by the standards of the comics!

And think about this, more kids watched those two shows then read the comics on a regular basis, which means that a whole bunch of people are probably wandering around out there still believing that these shows are the way the comics are!

I would think if they had really wanted to sell their newly created universe, they would have thought that out a little more.     

An irony shared with "The Flash", which ran on CBS in 1990-91. The main character was Barry Allen, who had been dead in the comics for four years. But I've read that the series also borrowed from the then-current Flash comics for the supporting characters. I liked the show, but I couldn't get used to Barry without Iris.

And had her movie been successful, Helen Slater was obligated for two more Supergirl films, just like Christopher Reeve's contract.  Of course, Supergirl II and Supergirl III would have been released long after the Earth-1 Kara Zor-El was literally "dead and forgotten".   :'(

Public-service Supergirl comics were still published by the US Dept. of Transportation after her death as well. Superboy comics based on the tv show also ran until 1992, and ironically were the first non-Archie comics I ever bought. In fact, the first season of the comics is much better than the first season of the actual show.

Iris did appear in the pilot episode of the Flash, and then "went away for a while." But the Flash in the 90s didn't have the same problems that the Superman titles did. Even though Barry was dead, the storyline continued in progression and wasn't rebooted the way that Superman and Batman were. Besides, they were the ones who had Mark Waid.

Interestingly, I got the first DVD of "The Flash" from the video rental store the day after I posted my comment. I hadn't seen any of the eps since the show first ran (:o 17 years ago!), and so far, I've only watched the pilot. I had forgotten more about the show than I remembered. Barry, the crime lab, the chemicals, and the lightning were the only things that resembled the story from Showcase #4. I guess they thought the murder of older brother Jay was necessary to give Barry a reason to fight crime. I always like the idea that Barry chose to use his super-speed for good just because it was the right thing to do. Ah, well, it is still fun to watch.

The Superboy comic tie-ins were actually pretty interesting. For one thing, they had Curt Swan. The "Superboy" comics was the only time I can remember that the Swanster ever drew the "crystal" Krypton of the movies. It came off as a weird hodgepodge of design elements: he had crystal architecture, but Kryptonians still dressed like they shopped at the Buck Rogers store (though with slight modernization; think Buck Rogers if done by Dave Cockrum).

Curiously enough, one plot point in SUPERBOY: THE COMIC BOOK was that young Lex Luthor hijacked the crystals of Krypton, which he intended to adapt for his own master schemes. This was many, many years before SUPERMAN RETURNS, but the similarities are pretty incredible. The comic book tie-in had a pretty nifty idea: part of the reason Lex's technology is so far in excess of what's possible, is because he had access to Kryptonian science, and with his mental adaptability, modified and applied it.

They did the right thing bringing the Flash to TV. He has a great look, and a motion-based power that looks terrific. Harlan Ellison said some characters in comics are in the wrong medium: Flash is one of them, as is Hawkman. In a comic, Hawkman just hangs there on a page. In live action, he'd look pretty awe-inspiring. The Angel was the single most visually incredible part of X-3, and it's a shame he wasn't used.

One thing I really wish the Flash TV show had done, was an effect that was often used in the Silver Age: show the Flash moving normally, but have the entire rest of the world "frozen." This is not a very exciting effect in comics, where everything is always frozen.

And that creepy season finale cliffhanger with old school great Gorilla Grodd? Trés Magnifique!

It may be right time to have Hawkman come to movies and TV now that CGI is cheap.  Making wings flap at a decent pace is difficult (using stop motion models), otherwise, its just sort of weak like the hawk people of "Flash Gordon" in 1980...

The two Supergirl "Seatbelt Safety" issues are definitely "out of canon", though considering these were the only times Kara Zor-El wore the Helen Slater movie costume (besides the official movie adaptation comic, of course), one might propose that these adventures actually took place in the Reeve/Slater Superverse.   ;)

I recall taping an episode of The Flash on the VCR without being sure if there was enough room left on the tape (there wasn't), and my wife asked me snidely if I thought it would be okay since it's The Flash and it would tape faster

That effect would have been hard to do in 1990. As of the 2000s, that effect was used twice in the early episodes of Smallville. It was awesome. Unfortunately, it was apparently crazy expensive to do, so they did it only once during the first and once during the second seasons of the show. Shortly thereafter, I stopped watching it anyway.

 I actually never watched the Flash TV show when it was on the air. My family were big Cosby watchers instead. One of the reasons I heard it was cancelled though was the fact that it seemed to rely too much on the comics and most people aren't all that familiar with the Flash's rogues gallery. I don't know if it would have been fair to ask the producers to pull back some of the comic book stuff, but it might have saved the show if they had.

I remember watching it once or twice. Now having seen the DVDs, there were really only one or two comic book villains in it. I have heard that it was preempted a lot by Gulf War coverage and then never renewed for another season, but I dont remember anything about that at the time.